Star Heating and Air Employee Celebrates 40 Years on the Job 

It’s been forty years since Lee Thompson opened the doors to Star Heating, but the family-owned business model of exceptional service at a fair price remains the same. 

“Dad always said, “Take good care of the customer, do your job well and in the end, the sales will come,” explains David Thompson, the company’s second-generation owner. Now known as Star Heating and Air Conditioning Co., the business is located at 1702 Commerce Court in Columbia. Star is an independent American Standard Heating and Air Conditioning dealer. 

Lee worked for Sears Roebuck & Co. in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, gaining experience as a service technician and credit manager. His experience, coupled with his entrepreneurial spirit, inspired him to open Star Refrigeration. In 1984, he sold the refrigeration company, then moved to Columbia and opened Star Heating in his garage. Building from a foundation of two service trucks and three employees, Star now has thirty-four trucks and forty-two employees.  

The company has many long-time employees, including Dennis Thompson (David’s brother), and managers with twenty-plus years at Star. “We have fantastic employees,” notes David. “Sales staff are not paid on commission so they focus on customer needs, not how much they will make on the sale.” 

Star also supports several children’s charities, including Pascale’s Pals, a nonprofit organization developed to benefit children and their families receiving care at MU hospitals.  

Harrison Receives Young Alumni Achievement Award from Westminster College 

Danielle Harrison, the founder of Harrison Financial Planning in Columbia, accepted the Young Alumni Achievement Award from Westminster College on April 13 during the college’s annual alumni weekend. 

Harrison Financial Planning is an independent, fee-only financial planning firm serving clients across the country. Harrison holds the Certified Financial Planner and Certified Financial Therapist-I designations. She is a regular contributor to TheStreet and has been quoted by many media outlets such as The New York Times, Barron’s, Investment News, Yahoo Finance, MSN, CNBC, MarketWatch, Business Insider, and AARP. She was chosen as one of ten 2021 Rising Stars by Financial Planning Magazine and featured as a Woman Advisor Making an Impact. 

Harrison is currently a member of the University of Missouri Trulaske School of Business graduate programs office advisory board. She has been chosen as an Athena Young Professional Award Finalist, Emerging Business Woman of the Year Finalist, and received the 20 Under 40 designation by COMO Business Times. 

SHSMO Recognizes National History Day Student Award Winners 

Ninety-nine middle and high school students from across the state received top rankings in the National History Day contest in Missouri on April 27 on the University of Missouri campus in Columbia. First and second place winners will compete in the national contest June 9 through June 13 at the University of Maryland, College Park. Students receiving third place in each category will be alternates. 

The theme for this year’s contest is “Turning Points in History.” National History Day in Missouri is sponsored and organized by the State Historical Society of Missouri. Just under 500 students competed in the state level with many more students competing at the local and regional contests held earlier this year. 

Two National History Day in Missouri teachers have been nominated for the 2024 Patricia Behring Teacher of the Year Award for middle and high school teachers. Missouri’s nominees are Kathy Lafoon, English language arts teacher at Liberty Middle School in Liberty and Paul Arnold, history teacher at Richland High School in Essex.

MU Doctoral Student Teams for 2024 Pulitzer Prize Award 

University of Missouri doctoral student Lisa Krantz is part of a team of journalists awarded a 2024 Pulitzer Prize. Krantz and more than seventy-five of her colleagues at The Washington Post were awarded the Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for a 15-part series titled “American Icon,” which traced the destruction caused by mass shootings involving the AR-15 firearm. Krantz contributed numerous moving photographs to a story in the series titled “A tragedy without end.” 

It examined the lives of the survivors of the 2017 church massacre in Sutherland Springs, Texas — the largest shooting in a U.S. house of worship. 

Also on the team of Washington Post journalists honored for work on the project were Missouri Journalism alumni Deputy National Editor Tim Elfrink, B.J. ’05; Deputy National Editor Amy Fiscus, B.J. ’03; and Photo Editor Monique Woo, B.J. ‘18, M.A. ’20. 

“It’s an honor to be included with this team of journalists,” said Krantz, also a teaching fellow at the Missouri School of Journalism.